Stanislava Barabášová roz. Pospíšilová

“When you went towards Litvínov, there was a big POW camp there, but with Frenchmen, for a change. And there was a German barracks across the road, where the Germans were garrisoned. I went past the POW camp, and they always shouted at us, standing right by the fence. So I was there, and they kept shouting at me to run. I realised what was going on, although I was just fourteen years old. So I fled around the side, and there were these - if you ever saw them in a film - these kind of deep, zigzaging trenches, field trenches like in a war. Unfortunately, I fell into them. It was in March, and what with the recent thaw, I stepped too close to the edge and fell straight inside. It was abour a hundred and eighty centimetres deep, I was out of sight. But I saw the planes flying overhead, I saw beforehand how a military convoy was approaching from Litvínov. They were at the station there, several cars and tankers - I didn’t realise that until later. And suddenly, when I fell down there, it all broke out, and I saw the planes. I thought they’d fall on top of me, they were flying right above my head because the convoy was getting really close. They strafed it, there were explosions... it was terrible.”

“It was known, who wouldn’t know about it there. We moved away afterwards. Our original flat was insufferable, so we moved from Záluží to Litvínov. My parents lived near the station around the time when the deportations took place. From what I remember, we saw them shuttle them in on lorries. They had their hand luggage, some kind of luggage with them, and there was always a train waiting for them there, they were gathered up from the surrounding area, because we had the station there, so they brought them in from far and wide. So they boarded [the train], and it was said that they were being taken across the borders. That there was someone else to take care of them there. But there were soldiers about, Russian soldiers as well because they were everywhere back then. Czech soldiers, too. But I didn’t see that anyone shot at the Germans when they boarded the trains. I didn’t see anything like that. They took them away, they just had some small luggage with them, that’s all true. In the end, I myself can say that they started it themselves, you could say, all of this, what went on. Hitler started it all, didn’t he?”